9/10 Open Discussion

So let’s first address the elephant…I mean donkey, in the room – “basket of deplorables”??

I think it was a stupid thing to say if you’re trying to win an election.

Last night, when I heard that at her fundraiser with Barbra Streisand, Clinton said to laughter:

“To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” Clinton said. “Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.”

Nice. Insult a big chunk of voters. I thought liberals were supposed to be caring people, people who often went the extra mile to engage people who have different points of view than they did, talk to people who have different attitudes than they have and, in a perfect world, find common ground, and go from there.

Clinton then said some of these people were “irredeemable” and “not America.”

Another thing that occurred to me was that during the brutal Democratic primary it wasn’t unusual to hear Bernie supporters labeled as sexist and racist, so do we also belong in “the basket of deplorables”? Does Clinton really believe that all of her supporters are perfect, tolerant, compassionate, people? Pure as the driven snow? Does she really think that none of them are even a little bit xenophobic, a little bit “Islamaphobic”?

Lastly, the optics were awful, imo. There she was before a room full of rich people and she elicits laughter by mocking fellow Americans by insulting them en masse and publicly writing them off. Is that a wise thing to do when you’re in the process of interviewing for the job of representing all Americans?

I don’t think that it was wise, I think it was elitist and stupid. And it wasn’t helpful to a country on the edge.

Over at Twitter #BasketOfDeplorables (which has been trending all day) I saw a comment that hit home for me that said that’s what happens when you spend “all August fundraising with elites”. I agree with that conclusion.

But now that the primary fight is far behind her, she is doing what, as Thomas Frank puts it, “Democrats always do”: Veering sharply rightward. Far from a promise to put first the needs of the most vulnerable, Clinton has instead frequently deployed what Daniel Denvir has called “the class equivalent of ‘All Lives Matter,'” promising to represent “the struggling, the striving, the successful,” no matter their official political affiliations.

Such rhetoric, while ostensibly a call for unity, is a common smokescreen, one often used to obscure the fact that the same powerful interests continue to dictate the policy direction of the nation.

Talk about handing ammunition to your enemies…. What was she thinking? I would have liked to have heard more of the second part.

While the behavior of the racists, homophobes, and other folks she calls deplorable IS absolutely deplorable, you have to address the behaviors, rather than the people. These are people who would be her constituents if she’s elected… objectifying them doesn’t solve any problems, and just makes the whole situation worse.

This comment was one of the very few comments I could rec out of the 600 comments that Barbara’s post received on TOP.

CoyoteMarti  Mystic54
Sep 10 · 02:45:37 AM

Yep. The “basket of deplorables” statement immediately hit me as totally dehumanizing. People’s actions and thoughts may be deplorable and hateful, but to describe them like an object is totally beneath this campaign and what we stand for. It’s what Trump (“my African American”) and his supporters do all the time. Totally tone deaf. Just like Obama’s “clinging to their guns and religion” remark. We knew exactly what he meant but it sounds arrogant. And it totally stepped all over the headlines that should be all about Trump’s “shoot ’em out of the water” crack.

Two commenters got it (and two or three others thought it was a dumb thing to say for political reasons). Here’s the other one, who I saw at least, who wrote about it from a ‘human decency’ POV (as well as from a political “efficacy” POV):

‘Two things here … first, racists, sexists and bigots should be insulted. At every opportunity.’

I don’t think insults from our leaders are effective or the routine social aggression we use to suppress what the “mainstream” considers “bad ideas”. We’ve seen a total collapse of efficacy in this approach and it’s time we start debating ideas instead of trying to purge any who dare deviate from the established narrative. Bigotry is nothing new and at one point it was the mainstream. It took brave intellectuals to challenge the moral failings of the majority.

In addition systematically degrading people especially when we’re talking about tens of millions of voters is politically treacherous. Appealing to their higher selves instead of talking down to them like ill behaved children would be more prudent in my opinion. The endless stream of insults should be left to radicals dependent on inflammatory language to get attention not those who we’d expect to lead a nation full of diverse views.

Yes, on video. Over at TOP they are saying that it was obviously part of the script (plus she used the same terminology speaking to an Israeli TV reporter the other day) so that means she did it intentionally, so that must mean she knew what kind of response she’d get, and so it’s all good.

Some over at TOP are swooning over how brave they think it was. Others are saying that it was a well-laid trap and that anyone who objects must be one of the ‘deplorables’, their objections mean they are guilty as charged.

Go to the two minute mark of this interview she did on Sept. 8th with what I believe is an Israeli TV outlet:

Wow… not great advice, I’d say — though what she says in reference to the second group of people sounds better, at least.

Then she says at 3:58, “I represent a very clear challenge to the status quo, the stereotype of leadership, a challenge to vested power and forces that I don’t think are alway in the best interests of our country.”

A challenge to the status quo and vested power? In terms of being female, yes, but in every other way she’s got to be kidding….

(Brexit vote) was a referendum, and voting “Leave” was a protest; voting “Remain” was a lukewarm endorsement of the status quo.

What if, in America, the 2016 presidential election is a referendum on the status quo? I mean, do you know anyone who wants things to stay the way they are? Everyone wants either progress or a return to the fictional “way things used to be”.

This is why Bernie Sanders might have been a better choice for the Democrats than Hillary Clinton.

I had not taken seriously the possibility that Donald Trump could win the presidency until I saw Matt Lauer host an hour-long interview with the two major-party candidates. Lauer’s performance was not merely a failure, it was horrifying and shocking. The shock, for me, was the realization that most Americans inhabit a very different news environment than professional journalists. I not only consume a lot of news, since it’s my job, I also tend to focus on elite print-news sources. Most voters, and all the more so undecided voters, subsist on a news diet supplied by the likes of Matt Lauer. And the reality transmitted to them from Lauer matches the reality of the polls, which is a world in which Clinton and Trump are equivalently flawed.

Lauer followed up with four more email-related questions. The impression an uninformed or even moderately informed viewer would receive from this interview is that the email issue represents a sinister crime, perhaps completely disqualifying from office, rather than an unjustifiable but routine act of government non-transparency.

So you see, you not supporting Hillary means that you are probably not reading enough “elite print-news sources”. So get cracking and get reading, then you’ll become better informed and, of course, support Hillary.

/s

p.s. speaking of reading “elite print-news sources”, I felt a bit like I had to wash my brain after reading Chait’s piece after being slimed with so much snobbery.

“Both of these beliefs stun and appall foreign-policy experts in both parties, as readers of the Washington Post or the New York Times know. But the average undecided voter isn’t reading those newspapers. The average undecided voter is getting snippets of news from television personalities like Lauer, who are failing to convey the fact that the election pits a normal politician with normal political failings against an ignorant, bigoted, pathologically dishonest authoritarian.”

When Hillary Clinton attended a $500 a plate fundraiser at a Charleston, South Carolina home on Wednesday night, she definitely wasn’t expecting this to happen.

Over the last few weeks, Hillary has desperately tried to appeal to minority voters in order to regain her lead over Bernie Sanders. Unfortunately for her, this backfired last night when Black Lives Matter protester Ashley Williams confronted her during her speech on civil rights.

According to Western Journalism, Williams held up a banner slamming Hillary for her “inconsistencies” on civil rights. She then verbally confronted Hillary’s for supporting criminal justice reforms enacted by her husband that resulted in an increase in incarcerations among African Americans.

Now the latest episode. It surely proves that Hillary is capable of ” seizing defeat from the jaws of victory”.

They’re living in a bubble, just like folks in the Fox bubble, reinforcing each other’s perceptions and prejudices and congratulating each other, and clueless about how other people see this a bit more objectively…. Guess that’s why we’re all over here!

There’s a difference between calling Trump’s campaign — or his actions, or his words, or his business failures — deplorable, and labeling his followers deplorable (rather than their actions). I hope she corrects it.

In a statement released on Saturday afternoon, the Democratic presidential nominee repeated that she had been being “grossly generalistic” but expressed regret for “saying ‘half’”, adding: “That was wrong.”

However, she followed with longstanding lines of attack on Trump, saying the Republican nominee had “built his campaign largely on prejudice and paranoia and given a national platform to hateful views and voices”.

The word ‘deplorable’ must have been focused-grouped, but they must have done this in Chappaqua.
It’s a word only an elitest would use. Regular people don’t deplore, they hate or despise or can’t stand or whatever.

Unreliable electricity, an ongoing blockade on building supplies, and a failing waste treatment plant have spawned a sewage crisis in Gaza that experts warn could permanently damage Palestinians’ access to clean water.

The crisis is now spilling over into Israel and threatening its water supply. According to an Aug. 25 report from Middle East Eye, floods of sewage flowing into the Mediterranean Sea have caused Israel’s Ashkelon desalination plant, the source of 20 percent of the country’s drinking water, to shut down at least four times in recent months.

In the report, Kieran Cooke wrote: “[E]ach day an estimated 90m litres of untreated or partially treated sewage flows into the sea in Gaza — only a few kilometres south of Ashkelon.”

I give thanks every time I sip fresh water, I really do. Although, not being a particularly religious person, I’m not sure who I’m thanking, exactly. But I feel lucky to get it right out of the tap (although I do filter with my Brita pitcher figuring that couldn’t hurt). We had to get a new well pump recently and were reminded just how much one relies on water during the course of every day!

Thank you for sharing this, Mag. Maybe when it affects them too the Israelis will address the water issues for the Palestinians? This sounds horrific.

I’m grateful for our water too, especially as California goes through its fifth year of drought. My little town has lots of water challenges, and lots of people using it (we get a lot of visitors here too). We were all restricting our water usage last year (watering your plants was restricted to specific days, depending on odd or even addresses), and our water rates went up — and we already had the highest water rates in California. (Even higher than SoCal desert areas, which seems a little nuts.) We definitely can’t take it for granted — another reason why also supporting the Standing Rock Sioux and Red Warrior Camp in protecting their water is important. It’s the lifeblood of the planet.

How can someone who has as much money as they have, plus a billion for this election, who has been running for POTUS for decades, be so damned dumb? Seriously – Clintons are so out of touch with reality, and they don’t even know it.
She’ll “walk back” the comments – but they were public, and supposedly used before in another context. At least Mitt Romney was secretly taped – Her Heiniousness is seriously flawed. As in something doesn’t compute in what’s left of her brain.

Most dreadful for me, we could have been working to elect Bernie Sanders POTUS. No way Clintons ( yes, it’s both of them) can beat Trump, and they’ve got no one to blames but themselves.
Dearly wish a journalist had the guts to ask this question: “Mrs. Clinton, we know you have a long resume, but could you please tell us what FIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS you are most proud of in the last 10 years. What have you accomplished, specifically. Instead of trying to tear down Donald Trump, please tell us what FIVE THINGS you have accomplished in the last 10 years which you are most proud of.”

One thing I would bet she’d include on that list is her assertion that she was responsible for bring big bucks from DC to NYC after 9/11 for first responders. Not exactly sure how much of that was her doing, but she says that one all the time.

..Clinton’s work in creating the 911 Health and Compensation Act, a program that funded healthcare for first responders and others who suffered long-lasting health problems because of the poison emitted from the pile.

Clinton fought for years while senator to get the program created in spite of tough opposition, playing a key role in its creation. It finally passed shortly after she left office.

But, then there’s this:

“I represented New York on 9-11 when we were attacked,” Clinton responded, oddly, to a Bernie Sanders question about why she’d raised so much money from Wall Street. “And where were we attacked? In downtown Manhattan where Wall Street is. I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York, it was good for the economy and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country.”

But until Clinton mentioned it Saturday night, fighting to save the financial industry has never been a central plank for any of Clinton’s campaigns. In a conference call with reporters Monday afternoon, spokesman Bryan Fallon didn’t back away from Clinton’s contention – that her Wall Street support has come, in part, in gratitude for seeking federal funds for New York after the attacks.

“That advocacy which continued for years after that to make sure that what was the lifeblood of the New York economy was not undermined, should not be conflated or misunderstood to mean she was anything other than a zealous advocate for strong regulation of that industry,” Fallon said.

think the Clintons are much more dangerous than Trump.
Notice many people use the words “fascist state” – sounds too much to me like one of those “be afraid, be very afraid” memes Clintons are trying to get us to believe.

We’ve seen how the Clintons behave when they are first and foremost concerned about their political viability, getting elected, can anyone imagine how destructive ( careless, reckless,) they’d be if back in the White House. TERRIFYING!

Seems to me that insulting voters will motivate them to turn out in droves for the other guy and more than likely will motivate fence sitters angry at her comment to join the other team…there is not a scenario that I can conjure up where this helps Clinton..it is kind of nasty coming from someone who wants to be president and whose job it will be to ‘be a uniter not a divider’…think that’s a Bushism…just threw up in my mouth…anyway isn’t she supposed to be motivating people to want to vote for her and not flocking people to the other guy? Didn’t she get the memo?

Basically vote for me because I will “hurt” you less than the other candidate, and after y6u vote for me STFU as now I’m in office and I don’t want to hear from you. Well iam basically giving the bird to both pres candidates and when I tell people that I get a shocked look from them as either side says he’ll do this to you or she will do that to you. These people have no idea on how to think for themselves –very scary to me that these people are acting like automatons no indy thought at all

I hear ya, but nowadays, when I peek in at TOP I wonder what I’d be saying if I was younger and/or didn’t know as much. I wonder if I used to have a kind of ‘blind’ faith in the party during most of all those years while going to DK. I might find some of my earliest comments somewhat embarrassing, for example.

I am grateful to Bernie for not only helping to wake me up, but for the way he woke a lot of other people up, especially the younger generation.

I love it when people talk about being ‘woke’. 🙂

@BlkMenForBernie there r more of us than them … there is power in our numbers .. all their guards & police R US … they R 99%ers we #WOKE

I have to admit when I was younger the “blind faith” in the party was in effect for me to an extent even though I was an indy. but with age comes more wisdom and I question a hell of a lot more now than I ever did then but now a days with the information available at the touch of a computer its easier to become more informed and suspicious of the true motives of all politicians. With politicians now a days to borrow a phrase from Regan “trust but verify” and then research after that 🙂

Amy Goodman, host and executive producer for Democracy Now, has been criminally charged for documenting attacks on indigenous protesters.

Last week, a Democracy Now film crew captured footage of private security contractors hired by the oil companies behind the Dakota Access Pipeline attacking protesters with dogs and pepper spray. Video of the attacks went viral on social media, with Democracy Now’s story about the attacks garnering over 131,000 shares on Facebook as of this writing. WDAZ reported that Goodman, along with Cody Charles Hall, a media spokesman for the Red Warrior Camp, have both been charged with criminal trespassing.

Livestreamer Unicorn Riot, who has been on the ground in North Dakota documenting Native Americans’ unified standoff with the pipeline company, tweeted a photo of the arrest warrant issued for Goodman and Hall:

On Sept. 3, Democracy Now! filmed security guards working for the Dakota Access pipeline company using dogs and pepper spray to attack protesters. Democracy Now’s report went viral online and was re-broadcast on many outlets including CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN, MSNBC and Huffington Post.

“This is an unacceptable violation of freedom of the press,” said Amy Goodman in a statement. “I was doing my job by covering pipeline guards unleashing dogs and pepper spray on Native American protesters.”

Guess they didn’t like that.

LivingOnChi: RT UR_Ninja: General says North Dakota National Guard working with law enforcement to identify "agita… pic.twitter.com/A4TqhaWRNS

A former presidential candidate has joined the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., proposed an amendment Thursday to the Water Resources Development Act to prevent the secretary of the Army from granting an easement for the Lake Oahe crossing for the crude oil pipeline until the completion of an environmental impact statement. The Senate is scheduled to resume consideration of the bill Monday afternoon, according to its floor schedule.

Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said he consulted with the Army Corps of Engineers “pretty regularly … to make sure that they were doing everything they needed to do as per the law.

“And in my view, in the last few months anyway, they were more than exhaustive in their environmental assessment of this route,” he said before the federal judge handed down his ruling Friday. “I don’t see what advantage an EIS would provide at this point.”

Cramer, a former state utility regulator, added the EIS may only end up adding costs and delay the Dakota Access project.

“We need pipelines to move oil in the safest and most environmentally friendly and efficient way possible,” he said.

Cramer’s Democratic challenger, Chase Iron Eyes, will be at a Washington, D.C., rally alongside Sanders Tuesday. Iron Eyes, a Standing Rock Sioux member who said he was an early supporter of Sanders, said he was happy the Vermont senator was “stepping up” in the pipeline dispute.

“As a country, we have to protect our national security, and in order to do that we have to protect our water security,” he said.

It’s one thing to denounce racism and sexism incidents, and have substantive discussions about race and gender issues and how to make progress.

But they use identity politics as a weapon to smear people for their own political gain. Some of us are refugees from that other site because we couldn’t stand it any longer. We remember the vitriolic attacks by Hillary people to smear and discredit Bernie supporters for the crime of liking Bernie. We remember all the “Bernie doesn’t care about black people” and “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t support Hillary” and the DNC using Bernie’s religion against him. Issues and positions are just used when they are a self-serving opportunity to attack people for political gain — instead of actually caring about the issues and reaching out to people.

This is how so many people become disgusted with politics and politicians. I still have hope because Bernie Sanders has shown us a different way.

Yup, I know exactly what you mean. And I guess one of them must be here and doesn’t like hearing it, because I upvoted both your comment and @fishtroller03‘s, and they’re at 0 now. I re-voted on both a couple of times, just to be sure, and I’m being told I already voted on these comments.

Over that That Other Site, they are working real hard on making things worse for their candidate. Do you believe this diary??? Great image for Dems…. am getting closer to de-registering as a Democrat every day!

It’s such a shame… they have no idea. It’s like folks who live in the Fox bubble. I uprated your comment there, and this one here, too, but someone seems to be unhappy with this, and they’ve downrated it back to 0.